Pre-Arrival Reading and Work for Economics & Management

We look forward to meeting you in October. Before you arrive, there are two required tasks you must complete.

Essential

Maths Preparation Please find enclosed a copy of the first five chapters and chapter 7 of the Maths Workbook. We will be working from this book during the first year (the remaining chapters will be given to you when you arrive).

It is essential that you work through Chapters 1-5 and do all the exercises on the final pages of each chapter to ensure you are ready for the first-year course. You will also find Chapter 7 useful preparation for the work to come.

Personal Development The Oxford degree both challenging and deeply rewarding. Resilience is a crucial personality characteristic that helps students achieve all of their ambitions while at Oxford. Please read: Either

Atomic Habits by James Clear or The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Or

Grit: Why passion and resilience are the secrets to success by Angela Duckworth

Beneficial We do not require that you read these; they are, however, all excellent in their own way, and we feel that you would benefit from exploring different aspects of economic thought, research, and policymaking.

Online A selection of Economics blogs: Paul Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ Greg Mankiw: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/ Martin Wolf: http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/martinwolf Tim Harford: http://timharford.com/ David Smith: http://www.economicsuk.com/blog/ Books There are several good “popular” introductions to economics, business, and statistics that are accessible and interesting whether or not you have studied economics and management at school. These are some popular books which you may be interested in but are not required to read.

The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford (Random House, 2007) Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics by David Smith (Profile Books, 2012) The Accidental Theorist by Paul Krugman (Norton, 1999) The Tiger that Isn’t: Seeing through a World of Numbers by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot (Profile Books, 2007) Naked Statistics by Charles Whelan (W. W. Norton, 2014) Mastering ’Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect by Joshua D. Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke (Princeton University Press, 2014) The Big Short by Michael Lewis (Penguin, 2011)

Kevin Sheppard and Howard Smith (Fellows in Economics), and Kazbi Soonawalla (Fellow in Management)